Alibaba set to enter Pakistan, signs MoU

Pakistan on Tuesday signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU with Chinese tech giant Alibaba to promote the country’s worldwide exports by Small and Medium Enterprises (SMEs) through e-commerce.

Online and offline training programmes for the SMEs would also be conducted by Alibaba in a bid to assist the enterprises with on-boarding on to Alibaba's platforms and optimising exports through e-commerce

The agreement was signed by Pakistan’s Commerce Minister Khurram Dastgir and Alibaba’s President Michael Evans along with Douglas Feagin, Senior Vice President of Global Business of Ant Financial, on behalf of Alibaba, Dawn newspaper reported.

Alibaba Group’s Executive Chairman Jack Ma and Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif witnessed the signing ceremony during the PM’s visit to the headquarters of the company.

“I am glad my meeting with Jack Ma at the World Economic Forum in January has come to fruition in the shape of the MoU we have just signed,” Sharif said.

“My appreciation of Ma’s dynamism and performance of (the Alibaba) group comes not only from its success as a e-commerce giant but more so from the focus of the group on job creation and livelihood generation,” he added.

Under the terms of the MoU, Alibaba, Ant Financial and TDAP agreed to foster growth of worldwide exports of products by SMEs in Pakistan through e-commerce.

Online and offline training programmes for the SMEs would also be conducted by Alibaba in a bid to assist the enterprises with on-boarding on to Alibaba’s platforms and optimising exports through e-commerce.

In addition, the three parties have agreed to promote the growth of financial services in Pakistan in areas such as mobile and online payment services, according to the report.

The parties also agreed to adopt cloud computing services to support the online and mobile e-commerce businesses of SMEs in Pakistan.